By R.J. Adams @bkmkting
Have you seen people promoting their books with creative graphics of quotes? It seems to be a fashion, and it makes sense. R.J. Adams contacted me at the end of last year with his ideas on how to use these graphics for creating images with quotes from your book to use in your social media marketing. If you’ve been wondering how to do this, I think you’ll enjoy this article.
Images grab attention. The popular phrase, “A picture’s worth a thousand words” illustrates this fact. Pinterest blew up overnight because people could share what they liked in an appealing visual format. This is also why it is important to have a beautiful book cover for your book. An attractive cover can draw in someone who is just browsing and entice him or her to make a purchase.
Use this to your advantage.
So, how can you use the attraction that people have to stunning images to promote your own books?
One way is to pull some great quotes from your book and then use an online tool to spruce that quote up until it’s perfect for sharing. You don’t even need to have any graphic design skills to do it!
I’ll show you some awesome websites that will take your quote and make it look amazing, but first it is important that you find the right quote to use.
How to Find the Ideal Quotes From Your Books
- If you already have a community of readers, try to find out their favorite quotes, because if they liked a particular quote, chances are other people will like that quote too.
- The easiest way to find what quotes your readers liked is to simply ask them. Send out a Tweet or a Facebook update asking your readers for their favorite quotes from your book.
- Another great option is to see what quotes people highlighted while reading your books. Luckily, Amazon has done all the research for us! Just go to your book’s page on Amazon and scroll down to “Popular Highlights.” This is a list of the most highlighted phrases in your book. Pretty cool, huh?
As an example, let’s use Joel’s book, A Self-Publisher’s Companion.
- Click on the book cover.The link will take you to Amazon.
- Scroll (and scroll and scroll) down to Popular Highlights.
- Pick a quote. The quote I (and others) liked was:
“In this environment it’s your passion, persistence and pluck that will sell your book, and those are all within your control.”
Let’s use that.
How to Graphically Spruce Up Your Great Quote
Luckily, you do not need to have any graphic design skills, because I found some great websites designed to make quotes look good.
You can use any one of these awesome quote image makers online to turn your book’s quote into a visual masterpiece. Don’t forget to include your website URL in any of these quote makers so people who find your cool quote image know where to go to buy the book.
Here is the list of beautiful quote image making sites (that’s the technical term) and a sample of an image that I made from each of them:
1. Pro Writing Aid
Pro Writing Aid has many styles to choose from that are generated automatically. It is very easy to use. If you don’t like the 5 or so styles they show you, you just click a button to have more generated. They also provide a bookmarklet you can add to your browser that allows you to create quotes from any site.
2. Quozio
Quozio is very simple to use. They include a bookmarklet as well, and have many great styles from which you can choose. Their images do not contain any watermarks.
3. QuotesCover
QuotesCover not only has a massive directory of quotes to use, but they also allow you to add your own custom quotes. Choose the “viral status” option on the second page. You can insert your own pictures on this site.
4. BeHappy
BeHappy is a fun site because you can add little icons, or choose from many different fonts. Also, they have many color scheme options.
5. Chisel
Chisel will require you to register to use the tool but registration is free. You can add your own pictures.
6. Pinstamatic
Sometimes, a particular quote doesn’t work well in a certain site, because of their size and font limitations. Each site is unique. I just pulled out a different quote from Joel’s book for use on Pinstamatic. Pinstamatic has a handful of quote designs.
7. PicMonkey
PicMonkey has many awesome features in the free mode, but they do show you more options that are available to you if you buy their premium service. I like PicMonkey because I can add multiple text boxes, which means I can add my website, other details, etc.
8. PinWords
PinWords has a few default images on their site, but they expect you to use your own background image, which could be good or bad, depending on whether you have a nice picture for a background or not. They do provide a bookmarklet to use in your browser.
9. Recite This
A downside to Recite This is that they include their branding on all images, so I prefer other sites. However, they do have some awesome styles available.
10. Quote4Fun
Quote4Fun isn’t my favorite option, though they do have some cool little graphics to add to your quote image. They work better in some niches and genres than others. Their images also have branding on them, making them less than ideal.
11. ShareAsImage
ShareAsImage just came out of beta as I am writing this; so there are a few bugs that they will hopefully work out in time. They only allow you to create 3 images with a free account before you need to pay. Their images contain branding, at least on the free account.
Wrapping It All Up
If you need something new to tweet, or you want to create beautiful images for your readers to share, pick a favorite quote from your book. Then, load up any one of these websites to create an attractive image to share with your readers; one that they can distribute on their own social profiles to get more attention for your book.
R. J. Adams is the Director of eBooks at Book Marketing Tools. He is an author as well and loves to connect with other authors and help them to see the importance of marketing their books. To learn more about Book Marketing Tools, head over to BookMarketingTools.com or for more great book marketing tips, check out their blog at: BookMarketingTools.com/blog.
Photo: umjanedoan via photopin cc
Love https://pixteller.com , thanks for sharing!
I actually thought this up on my own to highlight excerpts that were quotable parts of poems and my introduction and afterward. Not all things you write have a quote quality. I have the ability to write, so it occurred to me that I write my own tag lines and add lines in this life, better than anyone, because I can capture emotion. A snapshot, a glimpse to invite them to hear what my book might actually have to say. I use quote generators and I post them under the caption, S.L. Northey, Quotable Art.
Good, post, Adams! But it needs to be updates. Some of the services for e.g Pinwords exisit no more and we have big premium players like Canva and Pablo by buffer in market with lots of options.
Hi,
I was wondering what website do you recommend to have a quote, and to put your own website or name of your book of website link on Fb, at the bottom of the quote and author? I keep looking but couldn’t find one.
I am writing a journal book at the moment and I really wanted to get those quotation and picture, but put my own book name or website link on FB. What do you recommend?
Thank you =) Loving your website,
Inggrid
Really useful advice, thanks. I’ve not used quotes before but I will now! I do use Ribbet.com a lot because I like their text function better than other sites.
You can also check out QuoteandQuote.com, a platform for original quotes created by people who love words. Writers who join Quote and Quote can pick the best parts/sentences of their work, create image-quotes, set-up a profile page that contains all of their quotes, add links to their images that can take users to the original source of the quote (your website, a blog post, the amazon listing of your book) and interact with other members of our community.
Good list. Also you may create amazing image quotes with http://www.pixteller.com – you may check it.
Hi Joe. I use pixteller to create image quotes. You may check it on http://www.pixteller.com and add it on your list. I think is better
This is fantastically useful, thank you! There have been times recently whenI have wanted to create a word image for my blog but I gave up because I didn’t have the skills. The options are now endless!
Hey Linda… glad it helped, and yah, the options are endless! Get to work marketing your book!
Thanks for the reply. So, how do you highlight part of a book you’re reading?
I don’t have any experience beyond the Kindle Fire and the Kindle app for iPhone, but if I highlight a word, I can get the definition. If I highlight a series of words, it offers me a few colors for highlighting options, and I choose one… then it’s marked as highlighted. Amazon aggregates these highlights, and will show popular highlights.
Hi – I just tried to find the “Popular Highlights” on my amazon pages but it’s not there. Do you have to ask people to do this before it shows up? Or?
Hey Marcia…
Yah, the popular highlights will only show up when there have been enough people highlighting certain sections of the book.
Luckily, you know your book, so if you don’t have the popular highlights section yet, no worries, just choose your favorite quotes from the book and make cool images!
I’m wondering if this feature has been disabled as I couldn’t even find the Popular Highlights on the example book you provided.
At last! Someone with real extpierse gives us the answer. Thanks!
Awesome info. Thanks so much!
I chose PicMonkey and had a blast creating my first graphic to promote my novel, The Proof. You can see it on Facebook facebook.com/cherylcolwellauthor. Thanks sooo much for this post.
Wow! Great article. Thank you. I just made one with Pro Writing Aid in just 2 minutes, and used it to link to my blog :)
Awesome Di… when I originally found some of these sites, I was shocked how easy they make it!
Thanks for the list of resources – I personally use PicMonkey and ShareAsImage almost every day.
In terms of a tool to create a quote image quickly ShareAsImage pro service is great as you can also upload your own watermark which could include your Twitter url, your book website or anything you want to reference, you can also re-mix images as they are stored for you and you can share them to multiple networks.
Visual content is increasily important especially to create engagement in social media.
If you plan to post quotes to Pinterest, note that longer images work best so PicMonkey would be a good option as you can create images of different dimensions or even add an image and then add the quote on the top of it.
I wonder if anyone has asked the readers of their books to share their favourite quotes from it in a quote graphic – that could be an interesting competition idea you could host.
Krishna – Great tips! Thanks!
You’re welcome Stuart & Jennifer! I am glad this post was timely for both of you!
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been thinking about doing this and these tools are exactly what I need!
Many thanks, Joel, for a really useful post. Timely, too, as I was in the process of working out how best to do this!
Thonie: Glad you find them valuable! They can definitely be a time-saver (or a time-suck if you let them). Hope it helps to market your new book!
Greg: Yah, images will pop, on all social media accounts. People may skip past your text-only response, but if you include some pictures, they are much more likely to see your post (and engage with it!)
Colin: Yah, Photoshop definitely has it’s place, but if you need something quick for a quote, then using one of these tools is my go-to method. Glad it will help!
This is great RJ, thanks.
I used to do this in Photoshop, but these apps are a lot easier and quicker.
Images are great – they’re how people communicated for a long time.
We know the eye will go write for the image first thing. It’s why I started putting my blog headlines under the image instead of on top.
Thanks David Ogilvy.
Images are really important for blog articles, in my opinion, whether they are above or below the title. There have been several studies over the years that show more people will read an article with an image—even if the image is completely unrelated to the content—than if there is none.
I love these ideas to help promote my new book. Such valuable tools!!
Angelica – You’re welcome!
Alicia – What a great way to create additional engagement with your blogged book!
I can see another immediate use: I’m posting my novel Pride’s Children on my blog as I write it.
I will dig into the text and look for pieces I especially like – and put them places like the blog post I send out when a new scene is up.
It’ll be like creating my own Easter egg hunt: find the quote in the scene.
Thanks!
Great roundup of resources for quotes and graphics, thanks!
Joel – Ya… I thought the same before I came across one of the sites. Then I wondered if more were out there and went down that rabbit trail! Luckily, I was able to assemble them into a nice resource for your readers!
Myka – Using quotes from upcoming books is a fantastic idea, and way to use these resources above. It gets people hungry about your upcoming book. The more they become invested in it, the more they are willing to buy when it is published. I would even add a URL, when possible, to a page where they can sign up to your mailing list to be notified of more teasers, and of course when the book is released!
Frances – You are your most valuable source for quotes!
These are all great ideas! I hadn’t thought of quoting myself before. I have uploaded my book covers, images from my blog and quotes from other authors that I create images for, but I haven’t quoted myself. Good idea!
Also, a reminder to those fiction authors still writing and don’t know what to blog, tweet, or post.
1. Take a quote from your work in progress and post with a graphic or photo. Then blog about why you like/chose it. Don’t forget to add a tag “from , coming 2015”
2. Pose a question that touches on your book’s theme and then explore your question in a blog post. The “what if” premise of your book or like “is brutal honesty always the best?”
Jason – Yah, making the reviews look all spruced up is another great marketing tip!
Sara – You’re welcome… I don’t remember how I first came across it, but when I did, I realized it was a gold mine for seeing what your readers really liked in your book!
I’ve been seeing these graphics on Facebook and Google+ for months, but thought that the people posting them had some special skills to create them. Thanks to R.J. for showing us that just about anyone can use this attention-getting device to promote books or just to drive home a point.
This was pretty cool. I never knew about the popular highlights feature on Amazon. I love learning new things! Thanks! :)
Smart idea. You could also pull the best part of quotes from actual reviews.